This may sound like it was pulled right from a movie, but it is very real.  Games like Second Life which require to you spend real money for virtual money are being exploited by hackers.  By finding exploits, hackers have actually figured out how to literally steal all of a user’s virtual money in Second Life, which in turn means a loss of actual money… in real life.  How are banks and other financial institutions going to work around this one?

As if we don’t have enough worries in the real world, we now have to worry about pickpockets in the virtual world. The Mercury News has learned that security researchers have found a flaw in the Second Life virtual world that allows them to strip a user’s character of its virtual-world money.

Charles Miller and Dino Dai Zovi, two experienced hackers, say they have found a vulnerability in the way Second Life protects a user’s money inside the virtual world from being stolen. Their discovery has significance because the currency used in Second Life, dubbed Linden dollars, can be converted into real-world dollars. But the risks for Linden Lab, the San Francisco operator of Second Life, are limited because the researchers say the flaw can be quickly patched.

Linden Lab, in response to a query from the Mercury News, confirmed that the vulnerability exists.[more]

Tags: Hackers